Failsafe company, or what was left of it, breathed deeply from an air mixed with the aromas of freshly overturned earth, gunpowder, and blood. A half dozen men hunched low in a trench cut only minutes before by a shot down C-17 Globemaster III. A quarter mile to the south of the company, the smoldering remains of the cargo plane spewed a plume of black smoke into the cloudless blue sky like an oil spill in tropical waters. To the north of the trench, the soldiers knew, stood a massive, yet somehow mobile, nuclear power plant that the enemy was relying on to fuel their violent invasion. A rise in the dirt supply road obscured their view.
“Get ready to move out,” said Dante, the senior member of the company and their leader. “It's just a matter of time before they get spooked and start moving the target.”
Dante placed his massive machine gun on the ground and unshouldered his backpack. The gun was still smoking from unleashing a hailstorm of bullets at the now crippled cargo plane. A dozen or so parachutes drifted off towards the eastern horizon like dandelion seeds. Most of the paratroopers never had a chance to jump.
Holloway, the youngest of the company, quickly checked his pack: plasma and O negative blood bags, field kit life support system, one MRE, disposable syringes and needles, paddles, all intact. He flipped his pack over. The fuel canisters for the two-stage escape rocket was also intact.
Holloway threw the pack onto his back and picked up his rifle. The chemical oxygen iodine laser unit was also intact. He flipped open a small screen that was attached to the adjustable sight and tapped it. The red letters indicated a nominal 10-kilowatt power reading. His gaze turned to the remaining members of Failsafe.
His eyes turned instinctively to Trane, the only female in the company. On loan from special forces, she was the only female Ranger in history, having had to meet fitness standards that less than one percent of qualified men could pass. She was tall, well built, even for Ranger stadards, and astonishingly beautiful, even without makeup, and even after having to survive this seven day assault entirely behind enemy lines. But she was ice cold and a gifted murderer so everyone had kept their distance. She slid home one of the many knives on her person and then whipped an extendable baton to its full length as a test. She caught Holloway's eyes, pulled out her service piece, and chambered a round with a wink.
Across the trench from her, Cinque, a half-Puerto Rican, half-Brazilian slender giant looked over his RPG-30. It had been fitted with an automatic rocket loader. Satisfied, he picked up a slick rifle. It looked like it had been carved from a solid block of steel. He tested the laser sight on his hand then lifted it to the sky. He took aim at a drifting paratrooper maybe a full click away. A small red dot danced across the man's chest. The paratrooper frantically tried to brush away the laser dot, then, more practically, attempted to contort himself out of harm's way. Cinque pressed on the trigger. A bullet, larger than most, flew from the muzzle with a soft humph, like the bark of an elephant. It arced across the sky. The laser continued to dance across the panicked man's chest. There was a puff of red smoke from his chest and he immediately became limp.
“Cease fire, Cinque,” growled Dante. “Don't want to draw attention to our position.”
“We're four by four, chief,” responded Cinque.
Puzzle, the smallest of the company, scrutinized his long, sniper rifle. It's barrel was twice as long as any Holloway had ever seen. Puzzle counted out the ordinance in one of his pouches. The ammo was more like tightly packed rolls of quarters rather than bullets. Holloway knew the man was an electronics expert and those were probably EMP rounds or some other communication disruptors.
The final member, Snitch, was heavily bearded and always wore sunglasses. What few good looks at his face Holloway had stolen suggested a severe burn that ran down as far as his chest. The explosives expert had invaluable field experience, no doubt. The man had a cornucopia of grenades and bombs precisely arranged on a camouflage handkerchief. A couple of the bombs were marked radioactive. Snitch caught the shocked look on Holloway's face.
“Small fusion bombs. Don't worry, mate. These only have an impact radius of about a hundred yards.”
Holloway swallowed what little saliva he could muster.
“What's our play?” asked Trane.
“We make a run for it,” said Dante. “After that hill, I'd say we have another quarter mile to the outer door.”
“There are at least a dozen turrets out there looking over this service road.” said Cinque Automatic targeting by the looks of it. We'll be cut to pieces.”
“I can give us a few seconds with a chaff flare,” said Puzzle.
“Seconds?” asked Trane.
“Better than nothing,” suggested Puzzle.
“That's our play,” Dante grunted. “We'll use chaff to confuse the buggers, keep running, zig-zag style.”
Dante consulted a hologram of satellite imaging.
“There's a fence.” Dante looked at Holloway. “You''ll have to cut a hole in that on the run.”
“Roger,” said Holloway. Although, he was unsure he could pull it off, at least not without cutting someone in half in the process.
“Then we'll try to blast the outer hull with an RPG,” continued Dante. “If that fails, I'm going to need to you, Puzzle, to hack us in through some door.”
“Aye, aye, chief. Just get me to the door.”
Dante looked everyone in the eye, nodding to each one in turn.
“Chaff!” cried Dante.
Puzzle held a stick aloft, aimed it just beyond the lip of the trench and pressed a button at the base. A tiny missile spiraled into the sky just thirty feet above the ground before exploding into a shower of glitter. Dante leapt from the trench and Failsafe company followed tightly.
Holloway looked around as his feet pounded the uneven dirt road. Several turrets had risen from their perches like birds with enormous saucers for heads. The floating heads jerked this way and that, unable to get a lock on anything in specific. The hill loomed ahead of them, only a hundred yards away. But the cloud of chaff was beginning to thin and dissipate.
“Chaff!” cried Dante from the tip of the spear.
Nothing happened for a moment, but the crest of the hill was close. The unmistakeable sound of bullets began whizzing across the sky. There was a grunt and a thump behind Holloway. He started to slow but a cry from Cinque urged him on.
“Go. Keep going. I got him.”
Holloway saw Trane breeze over the hill, followed by Dante and Snitch. Holloway struggled up the incline, but the sight and sound of bullets pounding into the soft dirt around him was all the motivation he would need. He pulled himself over and half-slid, half-rolled down the other side. Ahead of them loomed a massive dome, like a bald man's pate. It was surrounded by a twelve foot high fence and razor wire. The bright sun shined down and Holloway felt completely exposed. Turrets began springing up along the dirt path.
“MIRV!” cried Dante.
“Coming!” came a response from just above them.
Cinque tossed the limp body of Puzzle down the hill. It rolled to their feet. Cinque threw himself head first into a roll and jumped out of it with the RPG already aimed to the sky. He flipped a switch and a grenade with multiple tips was forced into the barrel. He pulled the trigger and a grenade rocketed a hundred feet into the sky. All of the turret heads turned to follow it. They began to fire. It was like a military salute.
“Hole!”
Snitch ran twenty feet ahead of the company. Pulled out a snub-nosed rifle from his pack and aimed it square at the ground.
“Stand back!”
He fired a large round into the ground and a column of dirt erupted like a geyser. He turned and ran back to the group, and dove at their feet.
“Down!”
The ground beneath Holloway shook, like an earthquake. The earth seemed to rise. The ground where Snitch had fired rose higher still and then exploded, like a three hundred pound man doing a cannonball at a community pool, sending clumps of dirt forty feet high.
There was a sound like a quiver of rattlesnakes from above. Holloway looked up in time to see a dozen tiny warheads arcing lazily down towards the ground around the dirt road. Once each warhead had acquired a target they rocketed towards the turrets with urgency. Before he could see their wrath he felt a hand grab him by the collar and pull him into the newly excavated trench.
Trane released her grip. Holloway could hear the explosions of the MIRV warheads above. Black smoke drifted across the lip of the crater. A hand slapped Holloway's face.
“Get to work, doctor,” said Trane.
“How's everybody else?” asked Dante.
A round of nods and grunts confirmed that everyone else was fine.
“Dammit! I hope that RPG works.”
Holloway knelt down next to Puzzle and threw off his pack.
“Light please.”
Three powerful torches came on above his shoulder. This was quickly followed by sounds of disgust. Holloway located scissors and began to cutaway the bloody shirt. A full third of of his torso was eviscerated. The raggedy remains of his left lung slowly deflated under the shattered ruins of ribs. A quick look with his own penlight revealed that his heart was lacerated as well. He was a goner.
Holloway quickly removed the field kit life support system from the sack. He pulled out something that looked like calipers with a handle. He placed it around the base of Puzzle's neck, like a collar. He adjusted its size so as to fit tightly.
“Someone shut his eyes.”
“Wait,” said Cinque. “What are you doing?”
Holloway ignored him and leaned over to Puzzle's ear.
“Puzzle, I'm going to have to cut off your head.”
“What!” cried Trane and Cinque simultaneously.
“Do you want him to help us or not?”
Holloway looked around, waiting for any protests.
“Hold him down. And somebody please cover the poor man's eyes.”
Dante knelt down beside Holloway and Puzzle. He grabbed a hold of the dying man's arms. Cinque placed a hand around Puzzle's eyes, shutting his own eyes. Holloway squeezed on the handle. The small space was quickly overwhelmed by the smell of burning flesh.
“A laser is sawing through the tissue,” Holloway explained. “It takes a little bit of time to make sure that its an even cut.”
The body lurched, as if trying to rise. His fingers articulated grotesquely, as if trying to pop away from their hands. Dante put his weight into it, quickly subduing the man.
“Easy, Puzzle,” Dante said, absent-mindedly. “We got ya. You're okay.”
“Normal,” Holloway said calmly. “That's totally normal.”
Holloway was momentarily surprised how at home he was with beheading a friend, while gunfights and war made him nauseous.
A disembodied, ethereal female voice pierced the absolute quiet of the pit. “Amputation complete.”
Holloway gestured to Cinque. “Quick, give me his head.”
“No way, man.”
“Just lift.”
Cinque squinted as he pulled up on the surprisingly heavy head. Holloway pulled a cylinder, some tubes and a rubber bulb from the kit.
“Put him down on his chest.”
“Oh, this is so wrong,” complained Cinque as he set the head just below Puzzle's dog tags.
A jet of blood sprayed out from Puzzle's neck and drenched Cinque's shirt.
“You may want to move closer to me. That neck's going to keep gushing for a while.”
Holloway attached a bag of blood to one end of the cylinder and connected the tubes to the other end. Once Cinque had situated himself, Holloway reached his fingers into Puzzle's neck.
“Woah, doc!” cried Cinque.
“Hold him steady!” replied Holloway.
Puzzle's eyes shot open and his mouth flew open as if to scream. Only no sound emerged.
Holloway pulled out a thin, diaphanous tube from Puzzle's skull. He slid one of the narrower plastic tubes into its lumen and reached inside the neck for another vessel. After the fourth vessel was connected to the cylinder Holloway pressed a button on its side. A small whirring was followed by a crimson gel running through two of the tubes. Very quickly the two remaining tubes issued purple fluid, deoxygenated blood, that was directed into the cylinder for reoxygenation. After a minute, color was very clearly returning to Puzzle's face.
Holloway grabbed the rubber bulb and jammed it into the a larger opening in the neck. He looked at Cinque and pointed at the bulb.
“Squeeze that every second or so.”
“Why? So he can breathe?”
“No. For him to talk.”
“Oh my God.”
Cinque turned aside and threw up into a dark corner.
“Well, I think we've overstayed our welcome,” declared Dante. “Puzzle, are you with us?”
Holloway looked expectantly at Cinque. His face was ashen.
Holloway grabbed the bulb and gave it a series of big squeezes.
“It's okay, Puzzle. You can talk.”
After a few dozen squeezes, Holloway could see Puzzle's tongue and lips moving as if trying to catch up to the blasts of air through what was left of his trachea. It took a minute before a distinct word could be discerned.
“Four. By. Four.”
Smiles broke out all around.
“Atta boy, Puzzle.”
“Okay, Cinque,” said Holloway standing up, holding Puzzle's head like a bowling ball. “Two heads are better than one, right?”
“What's that mean?”
A flare spiraled out of the pit and exploded into a ticker tape parade. The Rangers of Failsafe Company crawled out and sprinted towards the fence and the power plant just beyond. Dante led the way and Trane brought up the rear this time. Smoke plumes along the side of the dirt road, evidence of deadly accurate MIRV strikes. However, several turrets were up and active, trying to train on a target. As the reflective debris began to float at eye level, Dante gave the order to shoot at the fence.
Holloway lifted his laser rifle and aimed at the base of the fence. Through the scope, at full sprint, the silver of fence and the brown of the earth blurred together. He opened both eyes, dropped the rifle to his hip and held down the trigger as he arced the pulsing light beam at the chain. An outline of a starfish glowed red across the metal mesh.
“Shit, Holloway,” spat Dante. “I thought you said you could do this.”
Dante threw his body against the fence. It came down cleanly, creating a hole large enough for everyone to run through without having to slow down.
“RPG!” cried Dante. “There!” He pointed to what looked like the outline of a door carved into the intimidating dome.
There was a hundred yards between them and the outer wall of the power plant. He felt Cinque brush past him and race ahead of the pack. Puzzle's head was bouncing against Cinque's pack, his eyes blinking with every footfall; the cylinder and blood bag frequently slapping his face, which was mouthing strong pejoratives.
A rocket propelled grenade flew from the launcher, searing the air as it spiraled towards the dome wall. Bullets began to pepper the ground around them. As the missile slammed into the side of the power plant and the smoke cleared, turret rounds whizzing by, the company prayed for the sight of a clean breach. A gust of wind gave the Rangers a clear view of a slightly charred but intact wall.
“Dammit!” cried Dante.
The company slammed into the disappointingly solid hull and spun around like prisoners at an execution. As the bullets approached, Dante ripped a foot and a half long spike from a strap on his side and hurled it to the ground. Immediately a transparent green force field blossomed out to a five foot radius in all directions. Bullets slammed against the field. The bullets were not outright stopped or reflected but rather redirected to the ground and to the sky.
“Puzzle,” yelled Dante above the thunderstorm of bullets. “Can you get us in?”
“Get us in where?” asked Trane despondently. “We have a door, but no handle. No keypad. Nothing.”
“Snitch!” screamed Holloway. “Bulb.” He gestured to Cinque to turn around.
Cinque spun around and knelt to the ground. He threw his RPG-30 to the ground and lifted his rifle, taking peeks around the force field at the battery of turrets. Snitch knelt down next to Cinque and took a hold of the bulb. He began to squeeze the bulb.
“Hard squeezes!” yelled Holloway. “You're not going to hurt him.”
“Breathe. On. Door.”
“Did you say breathe?”
“Yes. Breathe. Door.”
Holloway began to breathe on the door, starting from its center and radiating outward. Trane joined him, taking the other half of the door. A bullet glanced off the hull of the power plant just a foot above her head. She ducked out of reflex but continued blowing on the door, undeterred. Amazingly, a small icon, like a glyph, began to glow blue against the hull, inches from Trane's lips.
“I found something!” she yelled.
“Bulb!” cried Holloway.
“Touch.”
Trane tapped at the blue glyph. A spherical hologram emerged. It consisted of twelve rings of non-sequential numbers and letters, spinning in alternating directions.
“E. Z. P. Z.”
The bullet storm ceased. Seconds later concussive blasts were heard.
“Grenades!” yelled Dante. “They'll have our range soon. You guys have to speed up.”
Holloway turned back to see Cinque lowering a visor from his helmet. On it, boxes indicated three lobbed grenades. He lined up his rifle with each square, pressing a button near the trigger with each contact. He then pulled the trigger releasing three bullets. Three individual lasers emerged from the laser sight; each one tracking an individual grenade. The bullets hit each target, detonating them in midair.
(To be continued.)
